Project Team

Aaron Goldberg – Project Co-Director

Goldberg is a Burlington estate planning and elder law lawyer, the co-archivist of Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, and historian of the Burlington Jewish community. He helped save the mural in 1986, and has been engaged in the project since its beginning as the Project Co-Director. Papers Goldberg wrote while attending Brandeis University formed the basis of his work as contributing archivist for the award-winning Little Jerusalem documentary produced and broadcast by Vermont Public Television in 2013.

Jeff Potash, Ph.D. – Project Co-Director

Potash is an historian of American religion and co-author of Freedom and Unity: A History of Vermont. He received his Ph.D, at the University of Chicago and is a former professor of history of Trinity College, Burlington. Potash is co-archivist of Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, and served as contributing archivist and historian for the Vermont Public Television documentary Little Jerusalem.

Marcel Beaudin – Architect

Beaudin has been a leading architect in Vermont for a half century. He is especially noted for a large number of private residences in the modern style. Born in 1929 in Barre, VT, Beaudin decided to pursue an architectural career after meeting modernist master Le Corbusier in New York City in the early 1950s. He earned his degree from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and returned to Vermont in 1957 to work for architect Julian Goodrich. Three years later he opened his own practice, and began a career that continues today.

Richard Kerschner – Conservation/Restoration Adviser

Kerschner is Conservator Emeritus at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont, where he served as Director of Preservation and Conservation for over three decades. He holds an MA and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Conservation from the Cooperstown Graduate Program and is a Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation and the American Institute for Conservation, where he serves as Treasurer. As Principal of Kerschner Museum Conservation Services, he lectures, conducts research, and consults on lighting, collection storage, environmental monitoring and control, and practical conservation solutions for collections housed in historic buildings.

Constance S. Silver – Conservator

Trained in both fine arts and architectural conservation, Silver specializes in the conservation and restoration of historic interiors, with a focus on mural paintings and decorative painted surfaces. She holds an M.F.A in conservation from the Villa Schifanoia, Florence, Italy and an M.S. in historic preservation from Columbia University. Silver was a staff member of the International Center for Conservation, Rome and worked with several noted American firms before entering private conservation practice. She has more than 30 years of experience treating wall murals, ranging from the United States Capitol Building to the Custom House in New York, from earthquake-damaged frescoes in Italy to rare kiva frescos in New Mexico.

Samuel D. Gruber, Ph.D. – Project Development Consultant

Gruber is an internationally recognized expert on Jewish art and the historic preservation of Jewish sites and monuments. He is director of Gruber Heritage Global and, since 1994, lecturer in Judaic Studies at Syracuse University. He received his BA in Medieval Studies from Princeton University, his Ph.D. in Art and Architectural History from Columbia University, and he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Rome, where he won the prestigious Rome Prize in Art History. Gruber was founding director of the Jewish Heritage Program of World Monuments Fund, has consulted on cultural heritage projects for numerous organizations and institutions, and served as Research Director of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad from 1998 through 2008. He is author of American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community (2003) and Synagogues (1999), as well as numerous published reports and articles and the blog Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments.

Amy E. Waterman, Ph.D. – Project Development Consultant

A writer and museum professional, Waterman served for 16 years as Executive Director of the Eldridge Street Project (today, the Museum at Eldridge Street) in New York City, overseeing restoration of an 1887 National Historic Landmark synagogue and conceiving public programs for the site. Earlier she was involved in the creation of the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York and was a Senior Associate of the American History Workshop, leading exhibition and strategic planning processes at museums around the country. Waterman is a past Chair of the Council of American Jewish Museums and past Steering Committee member of the Museums of Lower Manhattan and the New York City Education Roundtable. She currently lives in Brunswick, Maine, with arts-and-culture clients locally and in other parts of the U.S. She holds a doctorate in Communication Theory from New York University.

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